Linux Gaming

It has been nearly a year since the last update to Sauerbraten, the 2008 CTF edition, but the open-source developers behind this game and its engine of the same name have been preparing for a new release. Within the next few days we should see the first 2009 release of Sauerbraten and it brings a host of new features. In this article is a rundown on some of the key features along with screenshots we captured when running their latest Subversion code.

Last week Nexuiz 2.5 was released and we said it raised the bar for open-source gaming as it already offered impressive graphics and this new release was greeted by various engine improvements, new models, and over 3,000 other changes. Well, Nexuiz is not the only open-source first person shooter striving for perfection even without the backing of a major game studio. A relatively unheard of game engine is XreaL, which has not had a stable release yet but its lead developer claims that it is definitely the most advanced open-source game engine.

Nearly a year ago Nexuiz 2.4 was released and it offered impressive graphics along with a new menu design, improved networking performance, reduced memory usage, and many other enhancements to this open-source game. The developers behind this first person shooter have now outdone themselves again with the release of Nexuiz 2.5. This latest release of Nexuiz brings even better graphics capabilities along with a new HUD, network communication improvements that cut the bandwidth in half, smarter bots, even better graphics, and several new maps. In total more than 3,000 changes make up Nexuiz 2.5!

Nearly a year ago we shared that two new PC action games were being ported to Linux. The games were Shadowgrounds and, its sequel, Shadowgrounds: Survivor. Both games were supposed to ship in the first half of 2008 for Linux, but that never ended up materializing. A Finnish game studio known as Frozenbyte originally developed these games and the Linux port was contracted to a company known as IGIOS. In August we were told that the delay was due to publisher negotiations and that they would hopefully have something in a week or two. That never ended up amounting to anything, but a month ago, we finally learned that Linux Game Publishing was working on Shadowgrounds: Survivor. Well, last night we finally got our hands on a beta copy of Shadowgrounds: Suvivor for Linux.

Cube was early on one of the first open-source first-person shooter games designed around its own engine. The 3D graphics for Cube were not the best, but development of this game had been going on since 2001. Based upon the Cube engine was then the Sauerbraten game that was also referred to as "Cube 2" with its engine being redesigned. Now though another game is emerging and its engine is derived from Sauerbraten. This game is called Blood Frontier and in this article we have a few screenshots of this game, which is working its way towards a stable release for the open-source community.

Earlier this year we shared that Valve's Source Engine is coming to Linux after receiving some information that pointed in this direction. In addition, a year ago Valve Software was publicly looking for a senior software engineer to port Windows-based games to Linux platform. There have long been rumors and hopes among Linux users that Steam games would become natively available for Linux, but we have additional confirmation that Valve Software has ported their Steam game client to Linux. In Valve's most recent title, Left 4 Dead, there are shared Linux libraries shipping alongside this Windows game client.

While not commonly mentioned at Phoronix, Alien Arena is an open-source sci-fi first-person shooter that has been around since 2004 and uses the CRX engine, which is a derivative of the Id's GPL source-code. Version 7.20 of Alien Arena 2008 was released this week and a few features had caught our attention. In addition to a number of game-play improvements, Alien Arena has received a number of improvements to its graphics renderer with GLSL program management, parallax mapping, new lighting, new shaders, and other work.

A week ago we shared that Linux Game Publishing, the company that has ported games to Linux such as Cold War and X2: The Threat, was bringing Jets 'n' Guns to Linux. Just a week later this 2D side-scrolling arcade game is now being distributed to LGP's closed testing community. We have our hands on the first beta of Jets 'n' Guns for Linux and in this article are a few screenshots.

For several months the Blender and Crystal Space projects have been working together to develop an open-source game they hope will be of a professional quality and deliver an industry standard 3D gaming experience. This game, now called Yo Frankie, was supposed to be released at the end of August, but that deadline wasn't met. However, released now is the first technology demo for the Blender Game Engine. This tech demo is playable and includes a small level from Yo Frankie, but to be released soon will be a more game-oriented demo that includes additional characteristics and game-play options.

For seven years Linux Game Publishing has been selling their Linux-ported games with no form of copy protection on their CD/DVDs, but beginning with their forthcoming port of Sacred: Gold that will be changed. Linux Game Publishing has developed their own Internet-based game copy protection system for Linux, and in this article we have more details on this scheme as well as their motives behind this work.